Thursday 26 April 2012

Catching up with Hello Sun

After a relaxing holiday and back to work, which was hectic, I was able to catch up on April's Hello Sun Block. I'm making three blocks - one for each Grand daughter and a spare.

 First I cut our the pieces I need - 3 suns, 3 clouds and nine raindrops. I used some batik for the raindrops.

 Ironing the pieces in place. I bought this little iron from mail order on the internet - it gets hot enough to fuse the webbing and to set blocks, but not hot enough to iron most clothes. Great to take in the van and to have at my sewing table.

 Then all that was left to do was appliquĆ©. 

 Now to the next project and Amy Gibson's Craftsy BOM.
 After reading some Q&A from Craftsy this site was suggested for hexagon shapes.
http://incompetech.com/graphpaper/hexagonal/
It worked really well, so now I'm hand sewing.

Sew long - until next time.

Monday 9 April 2012

Just keep sewing - just keep sewing....

It has been a lovely Easter Week on the Bellinger River - we have now moved further north and are on the Clarence River now. Of course we had to stop via Spotlight to pick up a few things, AND... there was a 40% off fabric sale, so I did have to get some more fabric ;-).
This week I hope to finish some projects - all except for the quilting - that will have to wait until I get home to my good machine. Here is what I've been up to.

 The almost finished owl wall hanging

 Making some Christmas Mug Rugs - yes I am starting early :-)

 sewing sewing sewing

 I love to hang up what I've made to look at.




This lovely quilt was made by a friends mother - I'm adding the sashing, binding and putting it all together.
 I really like it and think I will have to make a similar one :-)
On my list!!!!


Happy Sewing

Friday 6 April 2012

Sew I'm camping :-)

Away for two weeks and had to decide what sewing to bring. 
Always hard when there are so many projects to be done. 
I was going to bring the Orca quilt to work on, but that would have involved so much fabric, so decided on some owl blocks, scotty dog blocks and new I Spy blocks. 
The Scotty and I Spy ideas are from friends, but the owl is all mine - well I did ask for some owl patterns from friends, but ended up finding some photos on line and I adapted one of those. 
I did have to buy some more fabric - always a chore (:-D not!!).

This is what I bought from Spotlight - on sale!!!

After many designs and drawings I decided on a wall hanging for a friend.
Here is the design and templates cut.

I cut the main template with the three layers of fabric. Cut from 6.5" strip of fabric.

This gave me three different owl designs.

Another project was a Scotty Dog quilt block. Here I've made the template.

Template traced on double fabric and pinned.

I made a row - a total of 18 Scotties

Here are twelve of the Scotties and the three owls on the background squares.

I used this new basting spray, which was ok. I sprayed and then put in place and then sewed, but it really didn't hold the pieces too securely. I'll go back to freezer paper or fusible webbing. 
Might be ok for putting the three layers together - watch this space. 

This is my new sewing machine - this is the first time I have used it.
Quilters that travel will know that a traveling machine is a must.
I have a little Elna which I've had for almost 30 years - and I bought it 2nd hand!!!
In January it started making a really annoying squeaking noise, and service was going to cost $200 plus so....
.... Peter bought me this machine, brand new, reduced from $399 to $150 to a one day special of $99.
Well .................................
it has the same annoying squeaking noise!! GRRRRRRR 

It does sew very well, but the noise!!! You can't have noise when one is in a Caravan Park :-( 
Note the lovely Bellinger River out the back window.

Sewing the Scotties

Sewn at different angles and some with jackets.

A blurry (sorry) finished block. I'm not happy with the way the new machine does satin stitch. Guess that will have to be done on home sewing machine. My old Elna only did straight and zig-zag, this one does a lot more, but not what I need, so mental note - only bring projects for straight sewing or hand sewing.

So, while I was cutting, spraying and sewing ......
my boys were ......
playing games on phone

and fishing!!!!!!
  

Happy Holidays and happy sewing.


Thursday 5 April 2012

Catch up blogging :-)

The week before we went on holidays, I had time to work some more on the Orca Quilt.

I do love short cuts. Sometimes they work well and other times they don't. This time it worked. In stead of sing left over strings - I don't have left over strings - I had to cut the pink strips, in different widths, so I decided to make big 12" strip blocks and cut them down to the required size.


I trimmed each side ...




.. and then ended up with four blocks.




 I also had to sew some more end rectangle blocks. 

I almost brought the Orca Quilt blocks with me to sew, but figured I would need to bring to much fabric, so decided not to.
Sew Happy

Tuesday 3 April 2012

Holiday sewing

Two weeks break from school and although I do have to do some school planning, I'm also planning on sewing. Today I am cutting out some templates and I hope to make a heap of different blocks to applique. Watch this space.

Happy sewing